The Killer of Dolls

Miguel Madrid's second film after "Necrophagus" is a psycho thriller with dolls,mannequins and giallo elements."Killing of the Dolls" is even more bizarre than his campy debut as it features some surreal hallucinations seen by the main character,who enjoys killing sexually active women.The film is more competent than horrible "Necrophagus" and it has enough creepy looking dolls and mannequins to satisfy me.The camera work is shoddy and the acting is over-the-top,but there are some bloody murders via knife,axe and scissors plus cheesy musical number.I truly adore mannequins,unfortunately they are used in horror movies very rarely.During production of our third horror short "Nightmares of Mutantoid" we used many charred,dismembered and bleeding mannequins."Killing of the Dolls" was finally released in Spain on DVD by Filmax.6 out of 10.

When his grounds keeper parents go on vacation, a troubled young man fends off the advances of a lascivious Countess while romancing her virginal daughter on a large rural estate...

Made in Spain during Franco's regime, this lop-sided "Lady Chatterly's Lover" may sound like soft-core soap opera but the gardener's son, Paul, hates lovemaking and dons a porcelain doll's mask to murder any woman he catches in the act. The killer's identity is revealed early on with reasons going back to childhood so what suspense there is comes from wondering how the romantic complications could possibly turn out well. Complicating matters is a mixed-message homo-eroticism with the slightly effeminate anti-hero constantly cavorting in either tight short-shorts or his underwear when he isn't in a bed, bath, or shower and his only friend is a like-minded little boy who goes missing, of course. It's set almost entirely in and around a lonely landed manor house with lots of mannequins, doll mutilations and cheesy hallucinations for scenery and may not be very well made but some stabbing, throat-slashing, decapitation, at-home heart surgery, and handsome Helga Liné (a European Alison Hayes) as "The Countess" make this worth a peek. I don't know what I'd call DOLLS besides a silly slice of Eurotrash but "giallo" isn't exactly the first thing that springs to mind even though it's been sold as such. Writer/director Miguel Madrid (aka Michael Skaife) made just three films including the campy NECROPHAGUS (aka GRAVEYARD OF HORROR 1971) and this was the debut of androgynous star David Rocha who went on to not make his mark in such diverse films as Luis Bunuel's THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977), GARY COOPER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN (1980) and NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF (1981) before fading back into obscurity by the mid-80s.

This 'giallo-style' film from Spain is reminiscent of other films of it's time, that dealt with psychotic serial killers who are tortured by their own sexual repression. This is one weird movie, and the protagonist is even more strange. Paul is extremely handsome but mentally unstable, due to being raised as a girl! As children, Paul's sister dies in an accident and, not being able to cope with the loss, the mother deals with it by pretending her son is actually her lost daughter. Problems begin to surface when Paul comes of age, and starts to think about his sexuality. Up until this point his only companions were the dolls that he inherited from his sister; dolls which he grows to hate, as they are reminders of his sick and lonely upbringing. As he becomes more deranged, Paul begins to lose his ability to tell the difference between dolls and live human beings. That is when the killing starts.

Fans of obscure and bizarre horror films should seek out this rare title. Reminiscent of more well-known cult horror movies like "Peeping Tom," and "The Collector," and particularly the low budget "I Dismember Mama," "El Asesino de Munecas" is a creepy, stylish "giallo-style" gem. It is also one of the first films I recall that utilizes the "shaky- cam" style that is so popular today, but only in several intense scenes. It features an excellent score too. This has become a personal favorite of mine.

After his sister died, Paul (David Rocha) was raised as a girl by his grieving mother, who made her son wear dresses and gave him dolls to play with; now, as a young man, Paul is very disturbed, wearing a doll mask and wig to go out and kill women, who he mistakes for mannequins. When not out murdering, gardener's son Paul is busy trying to avoid the advances of his boss, Condesa Olivia (Helga Liné), while romancing her pretty daughter Audrey (Inma de Santis). Of course, Paul's love for Audrey is doomed since he struggles to tell her apart from the mannequins he despises.

If you're a fan of really odd films, then The Killer of Dolls is a must see: the plot is extremely bizarre, with plenty of random weirdness (my favourite scene: the hippy rock band who appear out of nowhere to perform a groovy song), but it is the central performance by Rocha that makes the film something really special. Rocha's acting technique is truly remarkable, the guy doing nothing the way one might expect: he stands strangely, he runs strangely, he kisses strangely, he showers strangely, he laughs strangely. In short, he's bloody strange, which is great because his character is not exactly normal (his best friend is a little kid in tiny shorts who likes to burn dolls!).

Writer/director Miguel Madrid delivers a few brutal death scenes - a decapitation, a stabbing with scissors, and a sharp garden implement in the face - but the effects are laughably cheap: when Audrey is shown after having had her heart removed, the wound is wholly unconvincing and de Santis is clearly moving.

If I'm totally honest, this is not a good film, but I had such a fun time with the insanely daft nature of the whole thing that I can't bring myself to rate it poorly. 7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for that song, and the hilarious dancing that goes with it.

I'm probably being rather generous here, but I enjoyed the film and found David Rocha's performance so bizarre it was mesmerising. Director Michael Skaife wrote and acted but only directed two other films. Rocha make a reasonable number of films, including a small part in Bunuel's That Obscure Object of Desire and not much larger part in Naschy's Night of the Werewolf. But back to the surreal film before us and that extraordinary performance by Rocha. Many horror films allude to manikins and dolls by way of introducing something of the uncanny but here there is barely a scene without one or the other or lots and Rocha seems to have been asked to move as if he too were some plastic zombie. Effective and strange and the teaming of him with a young lad who looks more like a young girl just ratchets up the weirdness. There is a back story surrounding his upbringing and the presence of a countess underplayed by Helga Line and of course there is death and destruction. indeed the film starts at a pace it barely lets up as we helter skelter from mangled dolls and manikin heads to the real thing. The music varies from sublime to something you might expect in a TV quiz show but never mind, there is surely enough here to keep the lover of the obscure well happy.